


Bait and Switch

by Minutia_R



Category: Fallen Angels (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: BDSM, Femdom, Knives, Mind Control, Other, Outdoor Sex, POV First Person, Present Tense, Public Sex, Woobie, Wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 07:13:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Ariel lifts her head, turns her eyes on Chance, and I shiver with cold as she withdraws her attention.  "I've seen the way you look at him.  Don't get greedy, Chance.  We're partners.  We share."</i></p><p>Roberto falls into the clutches of some old friends.  What plot?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bait and Switch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mr. R----](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Mr.+R----).



> Canon is, like it says in the notes, Fallen Angels, which was a late-eighties spinoff of New Mutants, which itself was (and is again, I understand) a spinoff of X-Men. However, I'm just taking Fallen Angels itself as canon and ignoring the rest, especially anything after the mid-nineties which I probably haven't read. This is set a few years after the series. So, uh, at least it's not underage on top of everything else?

Doors are treacherous; Ariel is potentially on the other side of all of them. So I have taken to the park. It's late, and it's raining, and it's hard not to linger near whatever other people I encounter, whether they're walking dogs or shooting up drugs. But that would be futile, and cowardly, and I am not a coward. It's only that Ariel frightens me.

If I can make it to 85th, if I can only—but I step onto a footbridge, and a woman slides out of the darkness to block my path. Short, but generously built, no one would mistake her for a boy anymore.

"Chance," I say. "Let me pass."

She tosses her knife casually from her left hand to her right. It flashes in the pale light of the streetlamp. A grin flashes in her face, equally knife-edged. "Try it."

I lunge forward, grabbing for her wrist, and put on a burst of strength as I do. It's simply a distraction, invoking my powers, but if it distracts it will have served its purpose.

It doesn't. Chance is good, better than when I last met her. She turns aside, cancels my powers, and draws her knife down my leg in one liquid motion. If she had made a thrust to a more vital area, she might have taken my life with that same motion—but she isn't trying to kill me. I hiss with pain, regain my balance, to find her once more blocking my path. So, and so.

In a prolonged fight, I can take Chance, powers or no powers. But she doesn't have to win, only to delay me, as the footsteps of her confederate steal closer, soft as raindrops. I try to go over the railing, for the element of surprise. That's a mistake. Chance doesn't surprise easily. She gets me by the back of my jacket, and yanks me down, and I'm sprawled on the pavement and Ariel is crouching over me. I scrabble backwards ineffectually.

"Roberto," says Ariel, "don't you want to come home?"

Ariel's eyes are faceted like jewels, and her voice is sweet and reasonable. "No," I say hoarsely, but my legs have already lost the will to move. My whole body relaxes, and my head falls into Chance's lap. I hadn't realized she was sitting behind me. Her jeans are wet with the rain, and surprisingly comfortable.

"We're your friends," says Ariel. "I'm your friend. You want to make me happy."

"Please," I say. "Let me . . ." I don't know what I'm asking for. Then Ariel cups my face with her hand, long slim fingers chill against my skin. And it's clear, with the sudden clarity of a lightning strike, what I want from her. I rub my cheek against her hand, and feel, against the top of my head, Chance's sharp intake of breath.

"Ariel." Chance's voice is thick, harsh. "Cut that out. This isn't what we came for."

"Isn't it?" Ariel lifts her head, turns her eyes on Chance, and I shiver with cold as she withdraws her attention. "I've seen the way you look at him. Don't get greedy, Chance. We're partners. We share."

Chance lets out her breath on a fluttering laugh. "We always have," she admits.

My own stomach flutters uncomfortably in response. Chance. She hurt me, trapped me—am I trapped?—but I don't want to see harm come to her. And harm is coming, though my mind shies away from the answer when I ask, from where.

"Well then." Ariel leans in closer to Chance. I can't see what they are doing above my head, but Ariel's voice is muffled when she says, "Let's have a better look at our boy."

Chance shifts, slightly. Her knife is in her hand, and her hand is next to my head. I say, "Don't—" and she covers my mouth with her other hand, a gentle pressure, a warning. She lowers her face towards mine, close enough that I can feel her breath, and the water dripping from her hair.

"Hey, Macho. You're not afraid of a little pain?" Though in fact there is none, apart from the continuing throb of my leg, and a particularly sharp piece of gravel in the small of my back. Chance is very deft with her knife. It barely whispers against my skin as she slices once, twice, three times, and my shirt lies in tatters on the path on either side of me. The tip of her knife nudges the waistband of my pants and I can't—though I try—control a flinch. There are places you never want a knife, no matter how deft its wielder.

"Shh," she says. "You don't want anyone to come investigating." Her voice isn't compelling like Ariel's, but the logic of the situation is. I'm a man, they're two girls; Chance would make her knife disappear and Ariel doesn't look as if she could snap a toothpick. She wouldn't have to open her mouth. What explanation could I possibly give?

Another slice, a cold slide of metal against my hot flesh. It's—God. Terriying, exciting, unbearable. Ariel laughs, and wraps her hand around my exposed cock. "He _likes_ it!"

I turn my head away. I can't look at either of them, I can't speak for anger and humiliation, and I can't deny it—I like it. I would do anything, now, rather than lose their hands on me, the heat of their bodies warming mine.

"Up on your knees," Chance hisses in my ear, emphasizing her words with a wiggle of her knife. I scramble up, leaving the remains of my shirt and jacket behind, and she tucks in behind me, with only her thin, wet t-shirt between my back and the lush heat of her breasts and belly. Ariel, sitting back on her heels, cradles my balls with one hand and works my cock with painfully slow strokes, as Chance cuts away at my pants.

"There," she says. Her knife is gone again, her hands are on my hips, her hair tickles my neck, the buttons and rivets on her jeans are cold against my butt. The whole front of me is naked, open to the wind and the slow patter of rain; I whimper a bit as Ariel lets me go and stands up and away.

"Do you like what you see?" says Chance.

 _Like_ —it's like a word in a language I don't speak: a fleeting puff of meaningless sound. Ariel is beautiful, pale and ethereally thin. Her legs and arms are bare, but she doesn't seem to feel the cold. Her hair, striped in improbable colors, frames her face in graceful wisps despite the rain. She seems a creature from another world—which she is—only touching this one lightly, with dancer's feet. And yet there's an immense gravity to her, irresistibly attractive.

I don't know how to put all this into words, and in any case, Chance is speaking to Ariel.

"Gorgeous," says Ariel. "I can't fault your taste."

"Um—Ariel," says Chance, her chin flicking upwards.

I see the same thing: a big dog on the footbridge, a woman in a light green raincoat. Our paths crossed earlier in the evening, and we acknowledged each other with brief sideways glances, city-faced and closed. She falters now, and tries to recover her city-face— _none of my business, none of my business_ —but I can read surprise, embarrassment, not a little fear. I want to apologize—she's done nothing to involve herself in this. I want to beg her to help me, to do something. I very much want for her never to have seen me like this, on my knees, exposed, helpless. Ariel, in her way, grants my wish.

She turns, a friendly smile on her face, and rests her hand on my head. "There's nothing unusual going on here," she says conversationally. "You'll have forgotten it in a minute."

The woman's face closes again, and she and her dog walk as wide a circle around us as they can, into the darkness. Ariel's hand in my hair tightens and twists. "Remember that," she says, still friendly and conversational, "if you ever start to think you can escape me."

I rest my head against the cool length of Ariel's thigh. I close my eyes and let my hope out on a long, shuddering breath; Chance presses closer against my back, nails digging into my belly, and says, "I don't."

I can't escape. I don't want to, really. It's a freeing sensation, like falling—I don't have to think about anything beyond Chance's mouth on my shoulder, her hand on my cock, smaller than Ariel's, hotter, rougher. Ariel is down on the path with us too, and I buck against her frantically. Everything about her is slight and smooth. Her tongue darts like a hummingbird, drinking from my mouth, my nipples, my navel.

"You really are," Chance breathes into my ear, "so beautiful, Bobby—" and I come, hard and hot and messily. Ariel—whose clothes and skin are still spotless, although she's right in front of me—stands up and aside, and I fall forward onto my hands, completely spent. Ariel offers a hand to Chance, and she lets me go slowly, gentler than she's been.

"Well," says Ariel, pulling Chance up. "That was fun."

"Yeah," says Chance.

Ariel takes Chance's face in her hands, tilts it up, and kisses her, not like a hummingbird, but long and intently. Her hands drop to Chance's waist, then up and under her shirt, and Ariel lifts her head just enough to say, "God, you're hot, Chance. Let me take care of that for you."

"Yeah," says Chance against Ariel's mouth. Her hips tilt forward and she says it again: "Yeah, okay."

Ariel sinks to her knees, fingers on the fastening of Chance's jeans, pulling them down over her butt. Suddenly, my hands and knees can't support me anymore, and I curl up, a fist to my mouth. I don't want to cry. I don't want to vomit. I don't want to understand what's happened to me, but I do, and I think I know why. Because I have been, not only used, but used up, cast aside; because it was never me Ariel wanted at all. It's Chance.

And Chance, her head thrown back, her breath coming fast, her hands twisted in Ariel's hair—does she have any more choice in what's happening than I did? I don't know. And if I don't know, I can't stand by—I summon my strength. It isn't there.

Chance again. If she's cancelling, she's cancelling—she, not Ariel, has taken advantage of the moment of distraction to loose Ariel's hold on me.

Can I leave her? But she _has_ chosen to be where she is. And though she's given herself to Ariel, she's given me a chance—I don't think about it any longer. I gather up my pants as well as I can, and I run.

For a few minutes, I feel nothing but the exhilaration of escape. Then I remember the woman with the dog, the way her face closed up; she has already forgotten. Safety is an illusion, and Ariel is potentially on the other side of every door, and I think I can hear footsteps stealing up behind me, soft as raindrops.


End file.
